Instead of spreading love, Marion Aunor’s “Pusuan or Laruan” series is holding up a mirror to the worst of Filipinos
Like with all trending topics these days, for a couple of weeks it was all anything could see on Philippine social media: the so-called “Golden Retriever Boy” and the “Englishera (Halata) Girl.” The jokes, the clips, the memes were everywhere. As we like to say, everything you know about them, you learned against your will.
Do I have to introduce them? Even those who live under metaphorical rocks know that they are two viral contestants on local singer-songwriter Marion Aunor’s YouTube series “Pusuan or Laruan.” Women are given red balloons to keep or pop, and men are trotted out to see if the women like them—if they don’t, they pop the balloon, and everyone’s made to explain why.
I started watching the episodes, and I saw that everyone here is just being vulnerable, for better or for worse. They’re looking for love, after all, and that requires baring yourself
“Golden Retriever Boy” refers to the first male contestant on the second episode of the game. He went viral because he called himself a “Golden Retriever” and then displayed traits that were very not Golden Retriever-like. This particular bit was clipped by the show’s producers and sent out into the world, where Golden Retriever Boy was thrown to the sharks. (If you watch the full episode, he goes on to say that the Golden Retriever bit was actually a ‘facade’ and that he’s really a Doberman, and he wants someone as sassy as he is.)
Meanwhile, “Englishera Girl” refers to one of the balloon-bearing women in the same episode. In one round, Englishera Girl pops her balloon and says it’s because she thought her English-speaking self would be too much for the man, who she thought was more comfortable speaking in Tagalog. (Guy would then go on to say he’s just fine speaking in English, as he’s a teacher.) She would also be thrown to the wolves—she seems to have gotten the worse brunt of the ridicule because we’re a misogynistic culture (and her elitist-seeming reason offended a lot of people; you never want to insult the Filipino masses’ intelligence by their grasp of English, or lack thereof).
Then there’s a third slightly less (very slightly less) viral contestant who had popped her balloon after misinterpreting a guy’s being “family-oriented” to mean he wanted kids, which she didn’t want yet.
All three viral contestants would end up getting bullied so relentlessly on social media because Filipinos love nothing more than to tear down a common target. All three would also end up posting social media notes to defend themselves from the angry online mob.
After the controversies, Aunor herself has gone on record to tell people that they should be kinder to these contestants. She’s also said that the videos aren’t being intentionally edited to create clickbait or ragebait clips.
This show is bringing out the worst in us, and I think we’re using the show as an excuse to just be dicks because, hey, everyone’s already laughing, so why not?
But they knew they had cast honest-to-goodness characters on the show, and I’m sure the team chose those particular moments because they knew the “weirdness” would elicit a reaction. They might not have known that it would elicit such a strong reaction, but they can’t seriously say they didn’t expect it. (I also post videos online for money; I know how the game is played.)
Exactly why Aunor started this dating game is unknown. All indications seem to be that it’s just for the vibes and the content. But giving content like this to Filipinos at a time when most people are either angry, hateful, or both, for whatever reason, was an all-time terrible idea; the online reactions to the contestants just prove it. Prices are high, we’re barely making enough, our politicians are mostly stupid and evil—it’s miserable out here, and there’s just enough dopamine to be gotten out of making fun of some people we find “weird” on the internet. (Trust me, I fell into this trap, too, when I saw how annoying Golden Retriever Boy was. Sorry, dude.)
My first thought when I saw these issues online was maybe Aunor and her team should just stop creating ragebait clips. But I started watching the episodes, and I saw that everyone here is just being vulnerable, for better or for worse. They’re looking for love, after all, and that requires baring yourself. The contestants knew they were going to look silly or stupid when they joined this kind of game, and this human honesty is what actually makes the full episodes—not the 30-second snippets—interesting, at the very least.
But most of the things they say actually really do provoke strong reactions. So what now?
Which is why my actual suggestion is: “Pusuan or Laruan” has to go. We—many of us—are just not emotionally mature as a society to not be vicious to the people who are brave enough to put themselves out there like this.
The way you feel about someone who’s like Englishera Girl or Golden Retriever Boy reflects on someone you know in your real life
The way you feel about someone who’s like Englishera Girl or Golden Retriever Boy reflects on someone you know in your real life. This show is bringing out the worst in us, and I think we’re using the show as an excuse to just be dicks because, hey, everyone’s already laughing, so why not?
To avoid this, “Pusuan or Laruan” would have to make everything cool (read: not cringe), and that’s just not realistic. That’s not real life. Reality is weirder and stranger, and that’s why it goes viral. So to protect everyone who goes on this show, whether they seem to be “well-adjusted” or not, we should just stop this nonsense.
We shouldn’t have to wait for something drastic to happen before shutting this whole thing down. I’d rather not stick around and wait for the next viral moment and poor sap to come out from this show (they’ve already just started putting out new episodes).
Actually, the terrible bullying is already drastic, and you’re not going to get an entire society to stop their bullying overnight. Cut it off at the base. Pop this balloon.